Denver Department of Public Health and Environment

The Denver Department of Public Health & Environment (DDPHE) is the city’s public health agency, working to protect and improve the well-being of all Denver residents. DDPHE advances health equity through environmental health, community and behavioral health, public health investigations, and sustainability efforts. Visit DDPHE website.

See DDPHE Resources

People posing behind Andrea Loudd's free communit farmers market booth

Why FIC?

People in front of Denver's Capitol with anti-hunger signs

FIC aligns with DDPHE’s core values of equity, collaboration, and innovation. We know that access to nutritious, affordable, and culturally relevant food is essential to community health and that systemic barriers in land use policy, underinvestment, and food retail inequities contribute to food insecurity. DDPHE also published the Denver Food Vision in 2017 which is a strategic plan stating that everyone will have equitable access to food by 2030, and FIC is a direct outcome of the vision as it was created to implement the inclusive goals of the vision specifically committing to building equitable neighborhood food environments by working alongside community members, uplifting local leadership, and advancing policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) change that addresses root causes.

The Denver Food Vision has driven a lot of work that enabled DDPHE to build strong and long-standing partnerships with community organizations, city agencies, and grassroots leaders throughout Denver. Through FIC and other public health programs, we’ve supported resident-driven food access efforts, helped establish cross-sector coalitions, and co-created policies to improve local food systems. Our track record of community engagement, data-informed decision-making, and experience managing public funding make us well-positioned to lead collaborative food justice initiatives that create lasting impact.

Our FIC Priorities

Local Agriculture:
Neighborhood Food Production

FIC team and FrontLine Farming team posing in one of FrontLine Farming's farms

FIC team organized a volunteer day at FrontLine Farming to get first-hand experience with the work that our partners do on a daily basis.

We identify land that can be activated for growing food, while also reviewing and addressing regulatory policies to help community partners understand, navigate, and improve local zoning codes for agriculture. We have three main strategies:

Strategy 1: Implementing Policies

FIC is pursuing creative zoning and land preservation policy changes to support neighborhood food production. This includes partnering with the Denver Resilient Landscape Vision and other public and private initiatives to advocate for policy change.

Strategy 2: Creating Public Resources

FIC is creating public resources such as a zoning and licensing guide and a map of possible food growing sites based on the Agriculture Site Suitability analysis to empower residents with the knowledge to access land and navigate existing zoning and permitting processes for neighborhood food production.

Strategy 3: Catalyzing Partnerships

Where FIC identifies opportunities to maintain or expand neighborhood food production, we are partnering with public and private entities to catalyze action.

Healthy Food Retail

Our focus on healthy food retail aims to implement existing planning policy strategies such as “Increase affordable food options and reduce unhealthy food options at retailers”. To do this we are working to implement strategies that inform and support implementation of planning policy, and support community groups working to bring innovative food retail models to Denver. We have two main strategies:

Strategy 1: Inform and support implementation of planning policy

Partner with Denver's Community Planning and Development to inform the development and adoption of the Far Southwest and Southwest area plans and by working with the People's Budget program which empowers residents to work with the city to decide how public funds are spent.

Strategy 2: Support innovative food retail models

Partner with the Denver Table project, led by Montbello Organizing Committee , which is working to bring a nonprofit grocery model to the city based on Boston’s Daily Table.

Andrea Loudd working in her booth filled with various vegetables

Andrea Loudd is a long-time FIC partner and passionate advocate for bringing healthy food retail into her neighborhood.

Sustainable Food Systems Funding

Sydney Skilken preseting in front of her audience

Sydney Skilken, Coalition Director at Southwest Food Coalition, presenting on funding needs at a national conference

We are working to identify long-term sustainable local dollars to support all parts of food systems change and meet community needs. To implement this policy priority FIC will lead the following strategies

Strategy 1: Partner with the Southwest Food Coalition (SWFC)

The Southwest Food Coalition (SWFC) is made up of of 55+ members including food pantries, community organizations, schools, producers, government agencies, and residents working to improve food access and transform food systems in the Southwest Denver Metro area. As a collective they focus on shared infrastructure and food hub services, community engagement, shared learning, nutrition and cooking education and advocacy.

FIC partnered with the SWFC due to the strong community ties and leadership in their advocacy efforts for a Denver Food Justice fund. SWFC will...

Conduct surveys and 1:1 interviews with community organizations who are operating direct community food services,
Identify gaps in funding for operations and programming to inform what type of funding would be most useful, and also
Identify challenges with advocacy partners already doing this work and successes, best practices, and pitfalls of advocating for long term funding.
Research examples of successful funding models in other cities

Strategy 2: Data gathering and consolidating

Gather and analyze the community engagement efforts that the SWFC is leading (interviews, workshops, surveys, coalition calls, past advocacy efforts)
Leverage findings from evaluation findings from the Healthy Food for Denver's Kids on improving HFDK's funding opportunities and the evaluation of progress made towards the Denver Food Vision through city-funded food-related projects
Hire the evaluator JSI to build on the past evaluation work they led for the city on funding and instead look at what community-led projects were not funded.

Strategy 3: Leading local advocacy & education on food funding needs

Pair the data with real stories from residents to show daily impacts.
Share these through story maps, short data briefs, and community meetings to make the issue of food insecurity and need for funding to address it relatable.
Support residents and partners in presenting data and stories directly to decision-makers to advocate for more funding.

Denver Resources

Screenshot of Denver Food Access Map, 2025

Denver Story Map, 2025

This story map features Denver as an agency and its mission/priorities, key aspects of the Denver community including demographics, small markets, grocery stores, gardens, farms, and farmers markets.

See the Map

Denver Food Access Map, 2025

This interactive map provides a comprehensive snapshot of the current state of neighborhood food production and food access points across the City and County of Denver. Read a full description of the map.